O Tempora, O Mores
Tamerlano
by George Frederic Handel, libretto by Nicola Francesco Hyam
The Grange Festival, The Grange, Northington until 3rd July
Review by Mark Aspen
Power and its corruption … absolute power and its tyranny. These are themes that strike a tragically topical note. Muslim against Muslim … sects of Islam at war with each other. Yes, very 21st Century. Yet these are the subjects of Handel’s opera seria, Tamerlano, set in what we now call the Middle East … but in 1402.
The Tartar Sultan Timur (Tamerlano in Italian) had spent over thirty years waging jihads against fellow Muslim rulers whom he considered not to be keeping the faith, but in truth merely an excuse to build an Empire to rival that of the Moghuls that had collapsed some half-century earlier. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid (Bajazet in Handel’s opera) was a hugely successful Turkish military leader, whose battle honours gained him the sobriquet “The Thunderbolt”. In July 1402, their two armies, each of over 100,000 men, squared up to each other on a battlefield near Ankara. However, by bribery and general skulduggery, Timur had caused whole regiments of Bayezid’s men to defect to his side. Timur prevailed and Bayezid was taken captive to Timur’s court in Bursa.
Read more…Very Little Voice
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
by Jim Cartwright
Neil Gooding and Tiny Giant Productions at Richmond Theatre until 2nd July, then tour continues until 16th July
Review by Celia Bard
Hardly seems possible that it’s thirty years since the Award winning comedy-drama The Rise and Fall of Little Voice premiered at the National Theatre in London. Since then it has undergone several revivals, not only in the UK but in south-east Asia. The latest incarnation of Jim Cartwright’s creation brings to Richmond Theatre this Cinderella like story of a young girl trying to survive in an unloving and uncaring environment that suddenly changes to one of fame and glory.
The setting of Jim Cartwright’s story is a gritty northern town, switching from the oppressive living conditions of Little Voice’s family, and that of a sordid, low-down night club. The play follows the rise of a reclusive young woman as she discovers success, and then outlines her emotional difficulties when having to cope with the expectations of others, those of her mother, Mari and of Ray Say, an aging, fading, unsuccessful impresario.
Read more…Ours Is Better Than Good
Our Country’s Good
by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Teddington Theatre Club at Hampton Hill Theatre until 2nd July
Review by Viola Selby
After spending two years in lockdown, where travel and social gatherings became nigh on impossible, Our Country’s Good is a breath of fresh sea air and a trip of a lifetime.
With a tense and eerie beginning that set us on our course for a play that would take us on an emotional rollercoaster, we were introduced to the cast of ten playing twenty characters quite quickly. At first you may think that the audience would have to use a lot of imagination to identify one actor playing two completely different roles, such as a Scottish uptight Major and a friendly, funny Irish convict turned hangman or a brilliantly British upper class captain and an eccentric Cockney-wit convict, with the only costume change being a major’s to captain’s coat and wig, but with this casts’ incredible talent, each actor brings all the roles they play into life.
Read more…Pecking Order
The Birds
by Conor MacPherson, based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier
St Michaels Players at the St Michael’s Centre, Chiswick until 25th June, then at The Annexe Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe until 27th August
Review by David Stephens
A chilling version of Daphne du Maurier’s original 1952 short-story, this stage adaption of The Birds, written by Conor McPherson (The Girl from the North Country, The Weir) and staged by the St Michael’s Players in Chiswick is a self-styled ‘tense-psychodrama’, delivering intrigue and suspense in abundance and managing to succeed where many others fail: to produce a thriller that is worthy of the genre.
The mood is set from the start. As the play begins, the auditorium is plunged into darkness, broken only by a faint, ethereal, blue stage glow, the accompanying eerie music punctured only by the unsettling sound of beaks, seemingly tapping on the roof and walls of the theatre, climaxing in a cacophony of bird screeches, human screams and the sound of breaking glass. As the play begins, therefore, the audience, hearts already pounding with adrenaline, and, with eyes struggling to adjust to this dim light, half expecting to see this flock of frenzied birds, are relieved to find themselves inside the relative safety of a room in a ramshackle house, complete with makeshift bed, a table with portable cooking equipment and another table stood in front of a heavily barricaded window. Such is the strength of this immersive beginning, that the audience almost feel as though they themselves have narrowly escaped the angry flock by diving into this abandoned property, adding to the feeling that we are also part of the claustrophobic experience that is to follow.
Read more…Nuns, Buns, Puns, and Guns
Cyrano de Bergerac
by Edmond Rostand, adapted by Glyn Maxwell
Putney Theatre Company at Putney Arts Theatre until 25th June
Review by Andrew Lawston
It’s always with something of a jolt that we are reminded that Cyrano de Bergerac is only a little more than a century old. Edmond Rostand’s classic play premiered in 1897, but its combination of historical setting, verse form, and its huge popularity and the impression it’s made on popular culture all give it a timeless feel.
This new production of Glyn Maxwell’s adaptation of the play is performed using traverse staging between two wooden arches. A gaggle of excited nuns set the scene on the way to vespers, wondering where their daily storyteller has got to. Within minutes, the holy sisters are engaging in enthusiastic but decidedly secular swordplay with wooden canes, and selling oranges to each other as they evoke the Parisian theatre where the story begins.
Read more…Lost Days of Wine and Roses
Private Peaceful
by Michael Morpurgo
Nottingham Playhouse and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions at Richmond Theatre until 25th June, then on tour until 9th July
Review by Eleanor Lewis
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses” warned Ernest Dowson in his 1896 poem Vitae Summa Brevis, and for Charlie and Thomas Peaceful and the rest of their generation approaching adulthood in 1914, that line was particularly pertinent.
Michael Murpurgo’s Private Peaceful tells the story of the two Peaceful brothers and their inescapable fate. Younger brother Thomas, ‘Tommo’, tells the story as he keeps watch through the night before a significant event in his older brother’s life. The action moves backwards and forwards with the narrative. There is perhaps an assumption that Tommo is the main character but the story is that of both brothers.
Read more…Will It ‘Bee’ Alright On The Night?
Beemaster
by Chris Harris and Chris Denys
Blue Fire Theatre Company at the Exchange Theatre, Twickenham then on tour until 31st August
Review by David Stephens
A comedic tale focusing on the plight of the humble bee, Blue Fire Theatre Company’s piece provides audiences with an entertaining and, at times, educational glimpse at the life of our winged friends, exploring the symbiotic relationship between keeper and bee and, in doing so, posing some thought provoking questions regarding our own existence and the meaning of life.
This monologue, written by Chris Harris and Chris Denys, is delivered by Brother Barnabus (Steve Taylor), the appointed Bee Master for an otherwise silent order of monks living in the idyllic surroundings of Clumpton Abbey. This setting, represented by two stage-flats, designed and painted beautifully by Junis Olmscheid, is simple yet highly effective. Its simplicity is necessitated by the fact that this play will soon go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and then on to various venues around the country.
Read more…Money Can’t Buy
The False Servant
by Pierre Marivaux, translation by Martin Crimp
Orange Tree Theatre Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond until 23rd July
Review by Gill Martin
A tale of duplicity, avarice, sexual tension and generally bad behaviour is played out at a dizzyingly fast pace at the Orange Tree’s production of The False Servant.
The dialogue is delivered at machine-gun speed and is as devastatingly cutting in its outcome.
The intricately involved plot focuses on a personable young noblewoman known as The Chevalier (Lizzy Watts) who disguises herself a sharp-suited chap to expose the despicable motives of Lelio (Julian Moore-Cook).
Read more…Opera on the Cutting Edge
Macbeth
by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after William Shakespeare
The Grange Festival, The Grange, Northington until 5th July
Review by Mark Aspen
The Grange is a dramatic location, with its air of distressed grandeur yet majestic pride. It is hard to think of a better venue to stage the most dramatic of Verdi’s operas. Macbeth is a melodrama, but a melodrama with shocking power and crucially with great psychological depth. As The Grange Festival’s first back-to-normal production, freed of the strictures of the pandemic regulations, it certainly packs some punch.
Verdi was a rising star, 34 years old, when he penned Macbeth. It would be another forty years before he was to write another opera based on a work of William Shakespeare. Maybe this is surprising, since Shakespeare was always a literary hero of Verdi’s. It is said that Verdi kept a copy of Carlo Rusconi’s Italian translation of Shakespeare’s works constantly at his bedside. However the then quite youthful Verdi wanted to make an impression with Macbeth with inventive approaches to the music and the drama, in fact to the whole feel of the work. He wrote to Francesco Piave, his librettist, “If we can’t do something great, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary”. Verdi did create something both great and extraordinary, and The Grange Festival’s production undoubtedly fulfils Verdi’s wishes.
Read more…Pull a Pint and Tighten the Noose
Hangmen
by Martin McDonagh
The Questors Theatre at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 11th June
Review by Poppy Rose Jervis
Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh’s play Hangmen, his first for more than ten years, is dark, dangerous and deep, and The Questors Theatre has not shied from going for the jugular with this intense, hard-hitting production.
‘There is a bit more life in the air at the local Hangman’s family pub – and it’s not down to the quirky cronies at the bar. Today, hanging has been abolished. For good.
With Harry’s face plastered across the front pages, his status as second-best hangman and local celebrity continues to thrive. But when a menacing young Londoner strolls up to the bar, something says he’s after more than a pint and a bag of peanuts…
Read more…
Mark Aspen 